Former Rustin swim coach given work release from prison

WEST CHESTER — The former high school swimming coach who had sex with a team member will be allowed to leave prison two days per week to take care of business projects as a part of a work release order.

Judge David Bortner, in the order signed Thursday, repeated his intention that Kenneth William Fuller must serve at least four months of total confinement in Chester County Prison as punishment for his crimes.

Bortner penned the work release schedule after a Monday hearing in which Fuller and his attorney said he stood to lose thousands of dollars in commissions for wastewater treatment plant engineering work he had done if he were not allowed to continue work on the projects.

The only way he could accomplish that, Fuller said, was from the office his father had set up for him in his home. Fuller said his father, while helping out with clerical duties in Fuller’s Guardian Environmental Products business, is not capable of handling technical questions involved in the projects that are under way.

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Although Bortner had rejected Fuller’s request to remain free on probation so that, in part, he could continue to work, the judge said he understood there could be some give and take.

“It has never my intention in this case, or in any case, to cause the defendant to lose their business,” Bortner told defense attorney Vincent DiFabio of Paoli at the conclusion of the hearing. (But) I am not interested in lessening or softening the sentence that I did impose.”

Fuller was sentenced on March 5 to seven to 23 months behind bars and ordered to finish four months of incarceration before getting work release.

Fuller, in his motion, said he had work to finish on four wastewater treatment projects that were in various stages of completion before sentencing. He had not known whether he was going to be allowed to remain free, and thus had not made arrangements to handle the work.

The projects are in New York, New Jersey and North Carolina. He said he might have to attend an on-site meeting in North Carolina, but Bortner’s order would seem not to permit that.

Instead, Bortner said Fuller would be allowed to leave the county prison in Pocopson starting Wednesday for two days a week, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday and Thursday. He must return to the prison at the end of the day.

Deputy District Attorney Elizabeth B. Pitts, who prosecuted the case, had generally opposed the work release motion. She suggested Bortner could suspend the sentence, allow Fuller to finish his uncompleted work, and then re-impose the prison term at some date in the future.

Most inmates at the county prison who are granted work release get those privileges either immediately, at the discretion of the warden or after he or she has served a minimum amount of time. Bortner’s sentence mandated that Fuller serve a minimum of four months before being considered eligible for work release.

He will still have to complete that, but in an irregular manner that takes into account the days he spends on work release.

Fuller, an engineer, designs parts for municipal water treatment projects and has them built and shipped to contractors and those building the projects. He had been lessening his engineering work in recent years as his career as a swim coach heated up, he said at his sentencing. But after his arrest, his work as a coach was cut off.

Fuller was arrested in May 2012 after investigators learned he had an inappropriate sexual relationship with a then-17-year-old girl who was on his swim team at Bayard Rustin High School. The two went to a Kennett Square-area motel together and had sex, at which time Fuller provided the girl with alcohol.

They also had sex in a West Chester-area park, and Fuller provided a forged medical excuse for her to get out of classes.

He pleaded to charges of endangering the welfare of children, corruption of minors, tampering with records, providing alcohol to minors, and harassment.

He will remain under court supervision on parole for 23 months, and then on probation for an additional eight years.